On Monday 16 October 2017 the Council adopted the EU Annual Report on Human Rights And Democracy in the World in 2016.

2016 was a challenging year for human rights and democracy, with a shrinking space for civil society and complex humanitarian and political crises emerging. In this context, the European Union showed leadership and remained strongly committed to promote and protect human rights and democracy across the world.

The map below shows asylum applications by under age 18 year olds and gender. Darker colours mean more people have applied in a certain country. Use the slider to select a year or the drop down menus below to display data for different age groups or different home countries.

I am honoured to address this first session of the Council's second decade.

After two years as High Commissioner, I believe it is important for me to share
with you in this oral update our concern over an emerging pattern: the growing
refusal on the part of an increasing number of Member States to grant OHCHR, or
the human rights mechanisms, access – either to countries generally, or to
specific regions, when that access is requested explicitly, or in other
instances to engage with us.